It’s been a number of years since I worked for a large organisation, but I get the sense that employees are still largely monitored by the number of hours they are “present” – i.e., on site, in the office, or logged in to the network. But I think we worked out some time ago that merely “turning up” is not a reliable measure of individual contribution, output or efficiency.

No doubt, the rhythm of the working day has changed – the “clock on/clock off” pattern is not what it was even when I first joined the workforce, where we still had strict core minimum hours (albeit with flexi-time and overtime). So although many employees may feel like they are working longer hours (especially in the “always on” environment of e-mail, smart phones and remote working), I’m not sure how many of them would say they are working at optimum capacity or maximum efficiency.

For example, the amount of time employees spend on social media (the new smoko?) should not be ignored as a contributory factor in the lack of productivity gains. Yes, I know there are arguments for saying that giving employees access to Facebook et al can be beneficial in terms of research, training and development, networking, connecting with prospective customers and suppliers, and informally advocating for the companies they work for; plus, personal time spent on social media and the internet (e.g., booking a holiday) while at work may mean taking less actual time out of the office.

But let’s try to put this into perspective. With the amount of workplace technology employees have access to (plus the lowering costs of that technology), why are we still not experiencing corresponding productivity gains?

The first problem is poor deployment of that technology. How many times have you spoken to a call centre, only to be told “the system is slow today”, or worse, “the system won’t let me do that”? The second problem is poor training on the technology – if employees don’t have enough of a core understanding of the software and applications they are expected to use (I don’t even mean we all need to be coders or programmers – although they are core skills everyone will need to have in future), how will they be able to make best use of that technology? The third problem is poor alignment of technology – whether caused by legacy systems, so-called tech debt, or simply systems that do not talk to one another. I recently spent over 2 hours at my local bank trying to open a new term deposit – even though I have been a customer of the bank for more than 15 years, and have multiple products and accounts with this bank, I was told this particular product still runs on a standalone DOS platform, and the back-end is not integrated into the other customer information and account management platforms.

Finally, don’t get me started about the NBN, possibly one of the main hurdles to increased productivity for SMEs, freelancers and remote workers. In my inner-city area of Melbourne, I’ve now been told that I won’t be able to access NBN for at least another 15-18 months – much, much, much later than the original announcements. Meanwhile, since NBN launched, my neighbourhood has experienced higher density dwellings, more people working from home, more streaming and on-demand services, and more tech companies moving into the area. So legacy ADSL is being choked, and there is no improvement to existing infrastructure pending the NBN. It feels like I am in a Catch 22, and that the NBN has been over-sold, based on the feedback I read on social media and elsewhere. I’ve just come back from 2 weeks’ holiday in the South Island of New Zealand, and despite staying in some fairly remote areas, I generally enjoyed much faster internet than I get at home in Melbourne.

With every new app I download, install or have to use, I keep asking myself: “Do I feel more productive than I did before I downloaded it?” Comparing notes with a business associate the other week, I realised that the arsenal of daily tools I use continues to expand since I last blogged about this topic. At times, I feel like Charlie Chaplin in “Modern Times” trying to keep on top of this digital production line.

In particular, the number of communication tools (instant messaging and conferencing) keeps growing; document and file management continues to be a battle largely between operating systems; and most collaboration tools struggle to make the UI as seamless as it should be – so that the UX is all about the “process” for creating, updating and maintaining projects, and not the quality of outcomes.

So, as an update to my previous blog, here’s a few thoughts on recent experiences:

Meetings/Chat

Added to my regular list are Telegram, WeChat, UberConference, BlueJean and RingCentral. Meanwhile, Microsoft (Skype), Google (Hangouts) and Apple (FaceTime) all compete for our communications. (Even Amazon has its own conferencing app, Chime.) One of the biggest challenges I find is browser compatibility (when using via a desktop or laptop) – presumably because vendors want to tie you into their proprietary software eco-systems.

Project Management/Collaboration

Still looking for the perfect solution…. Products are either so hard-coded that they are inflexible, or so customisable that they can lack structure. I suspect that part of the problem is projects are still seen as linear (which makes sense from a progress and completion perspective), but we collaborate at multiple levels and tasks (with corresponding inter-dependencies), which don’t fit into a neat project timeline.

Document/File Management

I seem to spend most of my day in Google Drive (largely thanks to Gmail and Drive) and Dropbox (which continues to improve). I find Dropbox more robust than Google Drive for file management and document sharing, and it continues to expand the types of files it supports and other functionality. Whereas, with Drive, version control is a bit clunky, unless the document was first created in Google Docs.

Productivity

Overall, Google Docs is still not as good as MS Office (but does anyone use OneDrive, let alone iCloud/iWorks, for document sharing or collaboration?)

One thing I have noticed is that my use of native iOS productivity tools has dropped off completely – if anything, I am now using more MS Office iOS apps (e.g., Lens, OneNote), and some Google Docs apps for iOS. Plus the DropboxPaper iOS app.

CRM

I’m starting to use Zoho (having outgrown Streak) – and I’ve heard that there is even a Zoho plug-in that connects with LinkedIn, which I shall soon be exploring. But as with Collaboration tools, getting the right balance between rigidity and flexibility is not easy.

In the first article, the conclusion seemed to be predicated on the idea that robots will destroy more “jobs” (that archaic unit of economic output/activity against which we continue to measure all human, social and political achievement) than they will enable us to create in terms of our advancement. Ergo robots bad, jobs good.

While the second report painted a depressing picture of where most economic wealth continues to be created. Of the 200 Wealthiest People in Australia, around 25% made/make their money in property, with another 10% coming from retail. Add in resources and “investment” (a somewhat opaque category), and these sectors probably account for about two-thirds of the total. Agriculture, manufacturing, entertainment and financial services also feature. However, only the founders of Atlassian, and a few other entrepreneurs come from the technology sector. Which should make us wonder where the innovation is coming from that will propel our economy post-mining boom.

As I have commented before, the public debate on innovation (let alone public engagement) is not happening in any meaningful way. As one senior executive at a large financial services company told a while back, “any internal discussion around technology, automation and digital solutions gets shut down for fear of provoking the spectre of job losses”. All the while, large organisations like banks are hiring hundreds of consultants and change managers to help them innovate and restructure (i.e., de-layer their staff), rather than trying to innovate from within.

With my home State of Victoria heading for the polls later this year, and the growing sense that we are already in Federal election campaign mode for 2019 (or earlier…), we will see an even greater emphasis on public funding for traditional infrastructure rather than investing in new technologies or innovation.

Finally, at the risk of stirring up the ongoing corporate tax debate even further, I took part in a discussion last week with various members of the FinTech and Venture Capital community, to discuss Treasury policy on Blockchain, cryptocurrency and ICOs. There was an acknowledgement that while Australia could be a leader in this new technology sector, a lack of regulatory certainty and non-conducive tax treatment towards this new funding model means that there will be a brain drain as talent relocates overseas to more amenable jurisdictions.

Appropriately hosted within Melbourne’s Olympic Park, last week’s Startup Victoria pitch night featured four companies working in SportsTech. It was further evidence of the breadth and variety within the local startup sector even if, on this showing at least, there was a little less innovation than we have seen at other monthly pitch nights.

First, there were a couple of presentations from Catapult and Genius Tech Group, to help provide some context to the topic, especially helpful for people who may not be familiar with this sector. However, I’m not convinced that referencing Australia’s Olympic medal tally as a key rationale for building a sports technology industry necessarily set the right tone. For a start, despite some gold medal success in the 2000, 2004 and 2008 summer games, Australia has seen a rapid decline in medal performance at the past two Olympiads. Then there are the cultural and governance issues at the AOC itself.

Then came the pitches, in order of appearance (website links in the titles):

With the slogan “tribes are everywhere”, this business is all about getting the off-field performance right. TidyHQ is supporting smarter sporting clubs and organisations by helping them with things like governance and succession planning, and by having all their back office operations in one place. Essentially a white label portal solution that offers branded websites (“SaaS doesn’t work in this market”), the service is designed to support grassroots clubs and associations, across all sports.

Using a freemium subscription model, the main sales channels are local and regional AFL leagues. Sales are helped by a viral effect – given that in small towns and regional areas, there is quite an overlap of club officers.

TidyHQ also takes a clip from sales of multi-stream products and services sold through their customer sites, which includes a diverse range of clients such as yoga studios, play groups, plus a number of US sororities, fraternities and law schools.

Competition comes from different quarters: vendors like TeamSnap and SportsTG; incumbent club officials and their spreadsheets; even social media. One challenge, however is managing and harnessing the “volunteer mindset” associated with community sports clubs, especially when it comes to budgets and adapting to change.

This company has built an app for soccer referees that works on smart watches. Referees typically use stopwatches to record match time and stoppages which, with constant match use have an average life of 2-3 years. Yet referees also have to keep track of player substitutions, match scores as well as the yellow and red cards they hand out.

At a price point of $60 per annum for referees, and annual fees of between $5k and $50k for soccer leagues and associations, an ideal entry point for RefLIVE would seem to be local, short-form knock-out tournaments, where the full range of features can be deployed in one place.

Currently scaling to take advantage of international market opportunities, RefLIVE is currently receiving enquiries from youth soccer leagues in Japan, as well as Germany and China.

Considered to be (literally) a game changing app for the Apple smart watch, RefLIVE is
also seeing interest from AFL, Rugby Union, Rugby League and field hockey.

At the moment, the platform does not support a live back-end, and there are no real plans to distribute or commercialize the data. While live data could be pushed to a server via WiFi, a bigger obstacle is getting the refs themselves on board – even though it has the potential to enhance their on-field performance and help them with off-field administration.

Spalk (“crowd-sourced sports commentary”) enables custom audio streaming for TV sports, via some proprietary technology to synchronise secondary content with traditional broadcasts. Due to the high costs and copyright issues associated with TV broadcast rights for professional sports (only made more complex by “over the top” platforms), Spalk is mainly licensed by broadcasters for coverage of amateur competitions.

The international basketball body, FIBA, sees an opportunity for Spalk to help drive international engagement, through the use of localised and translated commentary. However, in many cases, Spalk will need sports that retain their own D2C content rights. (Anyone familiar with the challenges of listening to overseas test matches will be aware of Guerilla Cricket, and its predecessor, Test Match Sofa.)

Part of Spalk’s “special sauce” is in integrating and synchronizing multiple audio tracks, which can provide better UX compared to social media streams and viewer posts, commentary and Tweets. Another key to success is the ability to integrate with existing broadcasting commentary technology and vendors.

SPT

Finally, SPT (sports performance tracking) is a GPS monitoring system aimed at amateur and grass-roots clubs and leagues. Offering analytics for all teams, SPT is cloud-based, multilingual and claims to be “efficient, simple, affordable”. So simple, that unlike the aforementioned Catapult, clubs don’t even need to hire sports scientists….

Currently supporting 800 clubs, and 65% of revenue coming from overseas (despite claiming to have spent only $300 on marketing), the main appeal is probably the $299 price point per device, and the core user base is amateur leagues.

SPT has so far relied on viral effects and referrals, plus an element of FOMO. While SPT may not be as sophisticated or as detailed as similar platforms used in professional sports, it has managed to demonstrate the data validation when compared to some camera-based apps. In any event, according to the founders, a 2-3% margin for error is OK for this audience. And if users can compare their own performances against those of professionals, that is an added bonus.

Following a tally of the judges’ votes, Spalk was declared the winner, but only by a margin of 0.25 points….

POSTCRIPT: While I think the decision to present thematic pitch nights was a good call, there are a few logistical aspects to the current series of events that the organisers need to address:

Choice of venues: the room used for the sports tech pitch night had an unfortunate layout – there was a pillar right in front of the stage, which must have been off-putting for the presenters. (Also, there was only a very small screen to display the pitch deck slides, so most people in the audience wouldn’t have been able to see them.)

AV tech: I’ve said this before, but organisers need to arrange for a second monitor in front of the presenters, so they don’t need to keep looking over their shoulders at their slides. And please, please check that clickers are working (or that presenters know how to use them!)

Audience participation: At previous pitch nights, the MC would field questions from the audience. Now, no more. And the audience voting system (people’s choice) has gone awry. Makes it feel less engaging.